Monday, November 26, 2012

Thanks to Prof. 9 on the GBATemp forums, we now have a fix for the character names getting cut off in dialogue. YEEEAH!

As such a new patch (version 3.01) will probably be released soon, as soon as our lovely beta testers make sure it doesn't totally break the game on flashcarts or something. If there are any other issues with the patch, please continue forwarding them here, thanks!

Also, I passed my driving exam! If you were around earlier on, you might remember an unfortunate accident(?) with a dog, which probably never happened. This time, it definitely didn't happen, so woohoo!

And before you wonder, no, I'm not that young I'm afraid. I wish I was, but I've just been putting off learning driving.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Hey guys. It's been a while since I last posted. I've been around, of course, but I haven't been bothered to make a blog post because there hasn't been much to tell. I was going to write a long farewell letter, but have decided that that's not really necessary since I just finished up an interview that I did for a commenter, Lucero, and his blog. You can read that here. It's got pretty much everything I wanted to say in it and more, and will hopefully give you guys some insight into what was happening behind the scenes (i.e. not much).

It's been fun. I'm glad that I took on the task of translating this game, because I've learned so much from it and gotten to know some pretty cool people. I've also fulfilled my long-time dream of making a major contribution to the community. My name will forever be there when you play the twelfth instalment of Fire Emblem. They will speak my name in the songs to come, and when my story turns to legend, and legend to myth, all that will remain will be my name: Agro. In short, I am now immortal.

I'm just kidding. I'm not that psychotic. Nor am I a typical FE villain.

But really, it's been cool. A quote:

Katarina: ...Not long now, is it...?

It won't be long until we become Altean knights.

When that happens...

Good night, McDick.

As you can see, I have the maturity of a ten-year-old. It's been a good year. So long, and thanks for all the donations fish.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Screw you TheEnd, I finished in about 24 hours like I said... well, more like 34 hours...

I'll just say this guys: the game was amazing, but it's made me feel hella depressed, so I think I'm going to go ahead and start a 2nd, more legit run once a new patch or whatever comes out... As for why I've become emo...

"- Kill them all, bad ending Marth & MU only classic run"

And they were never heard from again.

And it doesn't help that the game has to rub it in my face that I used a cheat code to attack and kill my own characters every 3 chapters.

No trolling this time around, as I've already posted my farewells; however, I figured a weekly update would be just fair. Besides, the previous post already has way too many replies.

The current scoreboard is roughly like this:

"I've finished my run" - 2 people
"I'll finish until Monday" - 2 people
"I'm still halfway through" - 2 people 3 people
"I just started and I keep running into game-breaking glitches what is this" - 1 person nobody

Names withheld to protect the innocent.

No, we don't have any news about the release date; it still should be out this month. Have a good day.

UPDATE: "I'm at like chapter 13, (...) and the glitches were probably a result of cheat codes so :|"

Sunday, November 4, 2012

With my test run finished, all that's left for me to do is giving opinions about last minute dialogue changes. So... yeah. All in all, translating this game was an interesting experience and I don't regret spending my time on it. However, this is likely my last big contribution to the Fire Emblem fandom.

When I started that Hasha no Tsurugi scanlation four years ago, there were barely any Japanese translators available. Now, we see the rise of youths like Agro and shadowofchaos725; there is no longer a need to rely on someone who doesn't even have English as his first language.

That said, I hope you'll enjoy this patch when it's out; it's one of the best games of the series. While Shadow Dragon isn't nearly as good, I suggest playing it while you wait so you can understand the backstory of Heroes of Light and Shadow a little better.

Or just play Ys or Trails in the Sky instead. The rest of the team agreed, don't bother them about it.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

But I've heard whispers of people who can freely manipulate their dreams and experience it.

... what, you thought I was talking about the patch?

Our closed beta goes on, and most of the team has either already reached the middle point of the main story, or is close to doing so. Except Blazer. Remind me why he's still in the team? Oh yeah, we need him to fix the crashes we find.

Vincent will be the one to post the patch, so don't get too excited unless you see a blonde Falcom girl at the top of a news post. But it really should happen before our fabled 11/27, unless we run into serious issues.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Any moment now, the Heroes of Shadow team will be conducting the closed beta test of the translation patch (or not, it looks like I f***ed up the beta. Now you should be glad we had a beta first). I'm not sure if I'll have the chance later, so I'll just give some closing thoughts now.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank everyone on the translation project team for their invaluable assistance and selfless volunteering, and also for sticking with us till the end (even if not everyone was around all the time). In case you don't know what they did:

Blazer did, um, stuff and then quit. There's not much to say about him. I kid. Blazer's done a bunch of very important stuff, not least gather the whole team in the first place. They helped to organise the team and the translation process and also got their hands dirty with hacking and various negotiations.

TheEnd was our veteran translator, who also worked on the Hasha no Tsurugi and other scanlations. They translated just about everything that wasn't the menu, prologue or the main story branch. Yes, that includes the super-lengthy base conversations.

Agro was our rising star translator, somebody who we hadn't heard of before, but they quickly made a name for themself for their reliability and determination. They translated the prologue and main story branch from scratch and did great justice to the Mystery of the Emblem storyline.

Nintenlord is probably the Hero of Shadow you haven't heard much about, in this translation at least. But without their help, this translation would have struggled to get traction, because they coded the super-efficient text editor. I shudder to imagine editing the text manually...

NomadicTrooperGirl ate all the Japanese graphics and spat out English graphics. We've had 2 graphic editors who did some work then disappeared. NTG did one graphic, vanished for ages, then reappeared and did everything. They're also a graphic editor AND graphic hacker-that's two hard jobs in one!

I'm sorry for bunching all you guys together, but you're all important individuals, I swear! I'm talking about Illumio, Martze, Pandorakun and Ryan, our trusty localisation team, who spellchecked, grammar-checked and zapped any zany Engrish lines.

I probably also ought to thank myself. I kind of joined the team initially to provide advice and support, but I ended up doing 90% of the menus and then verifying all the text in the game. I'm also apparently the project lead now... but that's probably in name more than anything.

And, while not Heroes of Shadow, I'd like to thank Nagato, DarkTwilkitri, Arch, Zak, Zaishi, Vi and Snow (sorry if I forgot anyone!) for providing various levels of assistance. In particular, Nagato is one crazy skilled hacker and if not for them, we wouldn't even have lowercase English symbols in the dialogue. Bonkers, right?

Finally, I'd like to thank every Fire Emblem fan who's been keeping up with or anticipating the Fire Emblem 12 translation. Seriously, keep your eyes peeled. The next time I post (I dunno when though...), I can almost guarantee you won't be disappointed!

Sunday, October 14, 2012

I'm not sure what the other team members think, but I'm planning to withhold posting concrete details about the current progress, especially as we near the final leg of the project. I mean, I could tell you, but it's not going to make the patch come out any sooner : P

While I have doubts this situation would occur, there's the remote possibility that Nintendo may send us a C&D and I definitely don't want to risk wasting everybody's (and my) efforts and hard work on. So for now, I'll try not to spoil too much, in case we end up on (all?) the gaming news sites like a certain prosecuting attorney.

Monday, October 8, 2012

I will not be revealing the answer (but I may provide a clue for this clue if needed), but you're free to guess (or not).

Also, I failed my driving test by doing a few silly mistakes, which may or may not have included accidentally running over a dog. Normal progress will recontinue shortly after I've drowned my sorrows with my mage girls and arranged or not arranged said dog's funeral.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Does "Vincent-Mar" sound too stupid to you? You can be perfectly honest. I think it's kind of stupid too.

Thing is, Tiki has a "special" nickname for My Unit, which is giving us a few headaches, because it--"My Unit oniichan/oneechan" or "(Big) Brother/Sister My Unit"--doesn't translate into English well. Additionally, this nickname has already been localised in Shadow Dragon for Marth--"Marth oniichan"--as "Mar-Mar".

So I figured we're going to end up with something silly anway, so I put two and three together and got "My Unit-Mar". You can help by either praising or blasting my choice and/or providing an adequate or hilariously funny alternative.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Before you get your hopes up (if you haven't been keeping up with the blog recently), this does NOT mean the patch is almost done. Well, it is sorta, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. It just means I won't be posting any progress until the patch is ready. Although, if I'm bored, I *may* post some cryptic images.

Current progress looks nice. About 75% of the text has been verified. The entire story has been verified, placing the total progress at 94% or something.

All that's left are the 211 "My Unit support conversations". Oh boy... Starting next week, I'll be slaying these conversations, making sure they don't break the game. When those are done, there will probably be a few days of "final verifications", where the translators give me the final A-okay and where I make any last minute arguments about certain, sketchy phrases.

Then comes the final phase--the closed beta testing and fixing. I don't know how long this will take, but hopefully not longer than two weeks.

Just to clarify, please don't volunteer and ask to help with the beta testing, unless you're a Heroes of Shadow staff member who we accidentally left behind. We've, fortunately, got all our bases safely covered, so we don't need any help (yet). And if you're THAT anxious to play the game, I'd be slightly worried for your health X D

With everything said, I bid you adieu until the good news or a silly, cryptic post--just in case you get a heart-attack when I post again and it's not the patch.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Text verification is approximately 60% complete. I'm lazy to do the maths, but that puts the total progress at 90% or something.

At the moment, all the menu files have been checked (again!), as well as all four BSFE chapters and the three downloadable chapters. Currently, I'm recontinuing progress on the main story and am up to Chapter 14, so progress looks good.

By the way, I have to wonder if people wonder what goes in the verification process? I mean, the text has been translated, edited and proof-read, so what's there left to do? Well, the proof-readers did a fantastic job, but there was one thing they missed--and that's checking the text in the actual game.

So my job is to fix lines that overrun the text boxes, like in the above screenshot:

LEFT: Original | RIGHT: After verification

That's the obvious part. The other thing I can do is make some final adjustments to the text, like in the remaining two screenshots, just to make things sound slightly less awkward and/or to spice things up. I'm a bit picky sometimes!

By the way, the next progress report will probably be my last. At this stage, there's not much left for me to ramble about. I'll of course be furiously working on the patch, but I figure it's about time for me to take a short break from the public.

Monday, September 17, 2012

It's obviously not the translation patch, but it's probably the next best thing. Thanks to epic translator Sami R and a legion of proof-readers (I got way more help than I anticipated, so apologies to everyone who applied and weren't accepted), I'm happy to present to you the "Heroes of Light and Shadow" Iwata Asks interview, located here.

It's a fantastic read for any Fire Emblem fan and please do share it with your FE friends if you like it!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Hi and welcome to another scheduled progress report. I'm going to be a bit quick today, because I'm kind of overrun on time.

I mentioned earlier that I've been doing some more trivial work, although no translation work can truly be that trivial. I've now ironed out all the miscellaneous text files, including the death quotes and the "How's Everyone" (formerly known as "Everyone's Conditions") quotes, some examples of the latter shown below.

And more recently I've started verifying the BSFE episodes, with episodes 1 and 2 now complete.

By the way, I chanced upon a message that somebody left, where they volunteered to help verify the text. I should clarify (and I think TheEnd mentioned this once) that the verification process, ideally, should be done by the chief editor of the translation, which would be me in this case.

Nobody needs to be worried about the speed the project is going, nor of my personal sanity. At least, not yet! The project is still on course for completion within this year and although the verification is a bit tough and time-consuming, it's a perfectly doable task.

Oh, and there might be something cool coming soon (or sooner than later, at least)...

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Hi guys, I'm back again. I figured I'd try and update every now and then, to take my mind off actually working on the translation.

Last time I mentioned how 50% of the main story has been verified to be working in-game (and makes sense); well I've been busy and I can now confirm that 42% of the 366 base conversations have been verified.

To account for the huge amount of content that is the base conversations, the estimated release date has been revised as anywhere from 15th October 2012 to 31st December 2012. To clarify, this will be the date the next and complete version of the translation patch will be released.

Unfortunately, all this quality checking is taking its toll on me, so I'm currently taking a short break and working on some slightly less intensive, but still rather important work, which includes a bit of this:

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Okay, it's been a month since the last progress update, so what exactly is new and how is progress?

Well, currently, thanks to NomadicTrooperGirl, all the graphical text is now complete and all--but 1 one of them--have been inserted into the game. I've really got to hand it to NTG, originally I feared graphics would be the toughest hurdle, but she made it look too easy.

This screenshot sums up my summary of her work:

(No funds because she doesn't get paid and no exp because she's such a pro)

With the graphical text sorted, that means ALL the text in the game is in English. But, before you get too excited of yourself, there's still a long way to go before the patch is ready for human consumption.

The final step, which I fear is what ultimately killed Blazer, is to check the text works in the game, making sure lines don't over-run the text boxes and that the lines are being said by the correct characters (which, admittedly, is difficult to tell unless you're playing the game) and don't sound *too* silly.

(I bet this sums up some peoples' worries)

And, trust me, this sounds easier on paper, than it is to do. Although, of course, it's a far easier task than translating the game or even proof-reading it. But, in any case, I can confirm that just over 50% of the main story has been verified in such a manner--at the moment, I've just completed Chapter 10x (the above screenshot is from Chapter 10).

I'm too afraid to do the maths, but that's probably about 25% of the whole game and at the rate I've been working, procrastination aside, we may be finished by the end of September. But, add in procrastination, and who knows when the patch will be done. But it will be done before the end of this year.

And I forget what was the random date TheEnd set, before he'll unload an incomplete, broken mess of a patch (because I worry if he even knows how to create a patch).

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

I've resigned from my post on the Fire Emblem 12: Translation Project. Unfortunately, time and other duties have prevented me from continuing my work on the project. However, don't worry, because the project is in good hands

Oh wait, what? I-I can't resign?

WHAT?! Blazer resigned before me and there's nobody left if I resign?

Sadly, because of personal circumstances, Blazer has quit the Fire Emblem 12: Translation Project and I have succeeded his position as project lead.

I'd like to express my thanks to Blazer for taking the time to put this project together and the many hours he put in to organize everything, improve/fix the files and make sure the project kept running smoothily. Blazer's done a lot that he fails to give himself credit for.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Watch this (and read the video description before commenting, please) if you're bored

I'm going back to work~

EDIT: This was my last post as a member of the team (which I'm now editing accordingly), it's been fun. (I plan on coming back here for some nostalgia at some point. The experience has really been too good. I wish I had time to keep going. I will truly miss the team since they're all awesome people. But that's okay.)

Friday, July 20, 2012

I'd like to say thanks to everyone who sent me a message about yesterday's volunteering task. I'll reply to everyone soon and begin the difficult task of narrowing down who to recruit...

In the meantime, I'm going to apologise for interrupting progress yet again, to mention something curious I spotted in Shadow Dragon, which is slightly related to this game.

When NTG was helping me insert the tutorial graphics, she was asking me where file 19 is. The tutorial files are numbered 01 to 38 internally, but there's no 19 and instead a weird gap between 18 and 20.

Well it turns out the missing tutorial 19 actually appeared in Shadow Dragon... or didn't appear, would be more accurate. It seems Intelligent Systems were planning to implement the ability to issue orders to units, like in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, but dropped it at the last moment.

The image below shows the unused tutorial card about issuing orders:

As you can see, Nintendo of America's localisation team translated the tutorial text, but cleverly didn't bother changing the graphics. I can completely understand their actions, since graphics are always more fiddly to edit than plain text; why bother translating a graphic that nobody's ever going to see? Amusingly, NTG actually translated a few unused graphics because she hasn't played the game and didn't realise they weren't used : P

For those interested, these are the orders that were planned:

Avoid[X]
Order units to stay out of enemy range unless otherwise instructed.[X]

Welcome!

Welcome to the official FE12 Translation Blog.

Here we post progress on the English translation patch of 'Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~'. Check out some of the pages to see details, screenshots, videos, and more.